


we all come with knives

by imshi



Series: these volatile times [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-02
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 07:23:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/745851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imshi/pseuds/imshi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>gods' lives have no relation to men's and no man could ever understand the relationship between loki and thor. not when loki himself can't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we all come with knives

**Author's Note:**

> title from the iamx song, i come with knives.
> 
> very mild dub-con as part of some very vague sex.

The lives of gods cannot be compared to the lives of men. Their wars rumble on for centuries, millennia, while beneath them people live and breathe and die, aware of neither the gods nor their own insignificance. Loki has seen many a human life, lived many a human life, in various guises, as his battle with Thor arches over all. It shapes the world though the inhabitants do not see it. Their war has shaped history as men grow caught up in their machinations, manipulated into fighting on their behalf as the gods sit over them, guiding and watching and waiting. There is only so much they can influence and much still relies on chance.

The battle rages on and Loki grows weary.

Each victory is less sweet, each loss more bitter so that eventually Loki finds himself wondering why but still unable to end it once and for all.

They are caught, the two of them, in an endless repetition of the same fight. Many slights that have wounded, each dug a little deeper until they bleed and bleed and bleed. They are cut too deep to be able to walk away and survive.

Loki sees it in Thor too. A bone-deep tiredness that pervades every movement. His steps drag, so slightly that one who did not know him as well as Loki would miss it. But Loki knows Thor the best of all and he sees it in his step and in his eyes. The way that he faces Loki and raises his hammer. A fraction of a second of hesitation.

Loki knows he could exploit that weakness. It would be so easy and yet he does not. He too hesitates, words tripping over his tongue in a way they have never before. He raises his hands, there is green fire swirling over them, casting a weird light over Thor’s features. Thor opens his mouth and Loki sees familiar words shaping, _please, come home, you don’t have to do this anymore._

Loki laughs. (It is a strange sound, cracked, sharp and fragile, forced out of his chest by sheer exhaustion.)

The green fire roars from his hands, engulfs Thor in its flames. For a second Thor’s face gapes, screaming, before it too is swallowed.

Then he is gone.

Not forever.

No, never forever.

This is the irony of their war. It cannot end. They cannot kill each other. Thor is bound inextricably into his soul in the same way that his is bound inextricably into Thor’s. There is no end.

Loki lets his shoulders slump. Just for a second. A momentary release of tension. He drags his eyes from the ground. They are not fighting on any earthly plane. The sky is endless and glistens with stars not known to any human eye. Far away, a new star blinks into existence. Loki catches the tiny flash of light, and keeping his eye fixed on the point, follows it.

•••

He awakes to hands, roughly pulling at his clothing. Murmurs and is hushed by a thumb brushing across his lips.

Thor fucks him in a haze of sleep and exhaustion that no sleep can erase.

He tastes of distant worlds, worlds of fire and ice. Loki touches burning ice to burning heat and in the moment of collision he and Thor are connected in a way that he will never understand. He drifts in and out of sleep, dimly registering when the weight of Thor’s body is beside him, dimly registering when it’s gone.

He wakes without the honey-slow drag that he has become accustomed to. Green fire and ice crackle at his fingertips of its own volition.

Loki curses and feels his hate for Thor uncurl deep in his stomach and grip his heart.


End file.
